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Topic: Generators (Read 42661 times)

As a programmer at heart, I've been thinking of something more ambitious. The detailed flavour text is more difficult, but a list of random attributes - type,color,size, distingishing marks, condition, contents (sourced from another generator, filtered by container size), etc, would be neat, but you would need a fairly detailed database to avoid Cast Iron saddlebags full of baby elephants.

Once you have the attributes, the hard part would be generating a description which was not just a list.

Perhaps this explains why most random generators out there keep roughly the same format for their entries. "You see a [adjective] [noun], with [special quirk]." That sort of thing. Perhaps if we could come up with a list of phrasings, we could then randomly choose one, then plug in values. That way we're not just giving a static list of nouns and adjectives, but we're also not trying to come up with an entire linguistics engine.

As a programmer at heart, I've been thinking of something more ambitious. The detailed flavour text is more difficult, but a list of random attributes - type,color,size, distingishing marks, condition, contents (sourced from another generator, filtered by container size), etc, would be neat, but you would need a fairly detailed database to avoid Cast Iron saddlebags full of baby elephants.

Once you have the attributes, the hard part would be generating a description which was not just a list.

A bigger and more detailed generator is easily possible, no problem there. As for the second part, I've been pondering that for quite some time, but it's too much trouble for my comfort. There would have to be a record for each and every word that you want to use - doable for a small set maybe, but troublesome for extending.

Perhaps this explains why most random generators out there keep roughly the same format for their entries. "You see a [adjective] [noun], with [special quirk]." That sort of thing. Perhaps if we could come up with a list of phrasings, we could then randomly choose one, then plug in values. That way we're not just giving a static list of nouns and adjectives, but we're also not trying to come up with an entire linguistics engine.

Yep, that is the easiest way. And yes, several phrases are great to make things fancier (it's also very much possible to code it - just create those phrases).

To be honest, I used to use tons of online generators, but once I discovered TableSmith I found true joy. There is a bit of a learning curve, but with hundreds of available random tables to choose from ( see TableSmith Yahoo Group which requires registration) there are plenty of examples (and online help from the Yahoo Group) to aid you in developing your own automated random tables.

To be honest, I used to use tons of online generators, but once I discovered TableSmith I found true joy. There is a bit of a learning curve, but with hundreds of available random tables to choose from ( see TableSmith Yahoo Group which requires registration) there are plenty of examples (and online help from the Yahoo Group) to aid you in developing your own automated random tables.

I think that was it... the registration... I couldn't find any accessible content, and had to consider whether to register or not, and then, then it was too late. I was distracted.

But I guess it is an interesting platform. I'll just wait until it exports tables straight into JavaScript. :p

One thing I liked Magic the Gathering cards for, was the inspirational value. Draw a random card, see what happens. Of course, that gets old soon with any limited number of cards... how about generating a card from all of them?

Been tinkering with it for a while now. As such, it is impossible to do.

The problem is, that all browsers forbid JavaScript to manipulate (or even to read!) websites loaded from a different server from your own. While that sucks for my own purpose, it is kinda understandable due to phishing attacks and stuff like that. Well.

To limit the range in either way would break it into old cards and new cards. It's of course possible to combine the two (or more?) blocks, but then would be a statistic analysis of some sort necessary... which would be too time consuming for me.

The alternative route is to make it a Greasmonkey script. While suboptimal, it will make it possible, being run in user's browser directly and not having such limitations.

So the next time I get into it, it's gonna be Greasemonkey time!

(Oh, and CM: I added a button for that. If all updates were so easy. )

I talked with MoonHunter the other day and he mentioned this stupendously simple idea of adding a little search field to those list generators. Case in point: the Fight Scene generator (or see the terrain features). Why didn't I come up with that before? Kudos to MoonHunter!